In Popular Culture
In "20 Hours in America, Part II", the second episode of season 4 of The West Wing, the song (covered by Tori Amos) was featured during the aftermath of a fictional bombing at a university, the story behind the song having been told in the previous episode: "20 Hours in America, Part I".
The song appeared in the television series House in the episode "Half-Wit". Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) played the piano introduction to the song for a patient (Dave Matthews), a musical savant with dystonia, who then repeated it perfectly (with House adding the distinctive hand claps between the last two phrases).
Tori Amos' cover of the song was also used in a major touring production of Romeo and Juliet by Headlong in a sequence referenced by many theatre critics, where its refrain of 'Tell me why' spoke to the production's emphasis on coincidence and chance leading to the play's tragedy.
VH1 rated the song at #67 on its list of the top 100 one hit wonders of the '80s, despite the song being released in 1979 and the Boomtown Rats having several other hits in Great Britain and Ireland.
In 2006 while presenting the NME Awards, Russell Brand made the joke, "Really, it's no surprise he's (Geldof) such an expert on famine, he has after all been dining out on 'I Don't Like Mondays' for thirty years". This was a response to Geldof calling him a "cunt".
Read more about this topic: I Don't Like Mondays
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
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“When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.”
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